What would you do if you were suddenly faced with the question of what to do with your life? What if someone sat you down, handed you a piece of paper and said, “Here. This is a blank canvas that represents your life. What goes on it?”
My therapist asked me that question this afternoon, amid a discussion about death and homelessness, hunger and rage. These, you see, are the things we deal with every day at work. Every day someone comes in who hasn’t eaten, who is sleeping on a different couch every night, who is so unbalanced and unstable that they might snap any minute. And every day we promise them that some way, somehow, we’ll fix it. We’ll find them a ride, a home, a meal. We’ll do something to make it all better, because that’s what we do.
It’s noble work, people say. It must be a rewarding job, they marvel.
And some days it is; other days, oh…the other days. Those days you come home and can barely fix a meal for yourself because your shoulders are so heavy with the weight of their problems. You toss and turn at night, thinking about how to fix it, about how to be that person that finally helps them turn things around. Your spouse asks you how your day was, and all you can do is shake your head because what can you say? It’s the worst I’ve ever seen, you say. I didn’t know it could get this bad. How did it happen to them and not us?
A friend of ours died this week. She was a wonderful woman, a beloved schoolteacher, and she died too young. At the funeral, I saw some of my schoolmates I hadn’t seen in years. I thought for a minute that I would go and speak to them, ask about their children. But I started to get anxious, just as I had during the service. There were loads of people, a crowd pushing closer and closer to the family and all I could think of was getting out of there. Are you ready yet? Let’s go, I said to my mother. This afternoon I told my therapist that I can’t stand crowds, the crush of people. I always feel the need to just GET OUT.
But then, somewhere in between the questions about should and expectations and boundaries, I started to cry. I realized that by get out, my body doesn’t mean for me to get away from the people. My body is asking me to just stop and listen. Listen to what’s inside, listen to yourself.
She asked me what I would have said to my old friends had I stayed at the funeral longer. What would I talk to them about, she wanted to know, what sorts of conversations would we have? I stared at her for a minute, because I didn’t know. I didn’t have an answer, and I still don’t. She got up from her chair, got a piece of paper off her desk and held it up.
“This is your life,” she said. “Tell me what goes on it.”
And the only thing I could think of was the job. It consumes every single white space on that paper. It takes up all the space in my life, and not just the space between 7am and 5pm Monday through Friday. It takes up all the other space, too. I might not physically be there, but my mind is there. It’s counting the hours and minutes until I am at my desk again. It’s looking around the corner at the grocery store because inevitably I will see someone from work, whether it’s a student or a co-worker. My mind is constantly on standby, waiting for the next work obligation to occupy more space.
I had another revelation: It’s why I decided to go to graduate school.
It consumes me.
Tears ran down my face when I made that discovery this afternoon. I couldn’t stop crying because I finally, finally looked at what my life has really become. I have become a hermit and my job is my shell. See me at a party? Clock the time it takes me to tell you that I work full-time and also go to school. Haven’t seen me in church lately? I will excuse myself because I have that job and that almost-degree. My house is dirty? It’s because I’m too tired from the week to do more than vacuum and run a load of laundry.
Now that I have started to think about this objectively, I realize that my life is probably no different from the lives of millions of other women. And those women also have lower-paying jobs, children, more bills, more stress than I do. But I think I have finally realized one thing – the most important thing of all: I can’t compare myself to other people. I can’t expect myself to handle everything that every other person on this planet has to handle. I can’t tell myself that I should do this or that I will fail if I don’t do that.
We started talking about that blank canvas, about filling up that space. She wrote down all the things my life used to be filled with and then she wrote “JOB” at the top, in big, bold letters. She asked me if there was room for “JOB” and all the other things. She asked me to define the boundaries I have set for my life. She sent me out the door with three pieces of paper: the blank canvas, the paper that only has room for “JOB,” and the paper that lists all the things I used to do before.
I will think about it. I will think about how to make it all fit, or even if it can all fit. Because the one thing there isn’t room for in my life is anxiety. Finally, finally, I’m starting to see the big picture, and it’s not pretty.
Half Baked, Twice as Good 